KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If good pitching is as simple as throwing strikes, it’s no wonder the White Sox rank 25th as a team in FanGraphs WAR in pitching.
Entering their 7-6 win against the Royals Tuesday, pitchers on the 53-85 Sox ranked second in the major leagues with 563 walks, trailing only the Athletics, baseball’s worst team (585 walks). They walked just two Royals as the Sox (54-85) broke a four-game losing streak.
What ultimately killed the Sox on this night was a balk, however. Gregory Santos was called for one when he didn’t come set with the bases loaded and Edward Olivares batting, capping a two-run ninth as the Royals came from down six runs to deal the Sox their fifth straight loss.
The inning started with an error by shortstop Tim Anderson.
The Sox were on pace to issue 661 walks, which would be the fourth-highest total in franchise history behind the 1950 (734), 1949 (693) and 1948 (673) teams. For reference, the 2005 Sox team that won the World Series allowed 459 bases on balls.
There seems to be no quick fix for a team-wide bugaboo.
“It’s process driven,” pitching coach Ethan Katz told the Sun-Times Tuesday. “We continue to go about our process, continue to show guys ideal target locations to be able to get count leverage. And we have to keep working through it. It’s all we can really do.”
Over their previous 25 games, Sox pitchers averaged 5.2 walks per nine innings and had 15 games with five or more. The Sox have had seven games with nine or more walks.
“We have to keep working through it,” Katz said.
Dylan Cease, the 2022 American League Cy Young runnerup, is among the “we” Katz speaks of. Cease ranked fifth in the AL in strikeouts with 73. Michael Kopech was tied with Blake Snell for the lead with 89.
Cease, who gave up five runs (four earned) on eight hits in 5 1⁄3 innings, walked two on Tuesday and served home run pitches to Nelson Velazquez, MJ Melendez and Michael Massey. Cease allowed a leadoff walk in the second after the Sox gave him a 5-0 lead on home runs by third baseman Yoan Moncada and catcher Korey Lee against Brady Singer. Lee, who was hitless in 23 at-bats, hit his first career homer and had a strong defensive game. Moncada extended his on-base streak to 15 with his sixth homer.
After Andrew Vaughn hit his career high 18th homer to give the Sox a 6-0 lead, the Sox didn’t tack on with Gavin Sheets hitting a nubber in front of the plate with the bases loaded and Andrew Benintendi striking out with runners at second and third.
Cease hadn’t allowed more than one homer all season. But he has been a five-innings or less pitcher in 17 starts, largely due to high pitch counts and the inability at times to put hitters away when he’s ahead in counts.
“You have a stuff guy who gets into a position to strike guys out they’re going to take their shots at striking guys out,” Katz said. “The one thing we’ve talked about with Dylan for three years is, you get to a 2-2 count, that’s when we want weak contact. That’s our approach.
“Sometimes the game shows different situations, such as second and third, one out, you might continue to go for it. ... try to combat pitch count and not go too deep into at-bats.”
On the hitting side, the Sox are last in walks with 328. They were 11th in strikeouts with 1,265 and first with a 33.1% chase rate before Tuesday.